The world intrigues me, this is where I share its quirkiness

Things I learnt from my dog

My dog is a 3 year old female Dachshund (Toffee), who is a bodily representation of a mad slinky. She’s beautiful and there’s no poetic way to say this: I love her. Here are a few things she’s taught me from all the days we’ve spent together.

1. Being grateful
There’s no limit to how much she loves the hands that feed her. If she jumps to welcome the rest of the family when we come home, she literally throws herself at my mom (because she’s the food-maker). Sometimes, I’ve seen Toffee cry with happiness when mom’s back home.

2. If you’re not sure, sniff
Apart from collecting rocks from every trip outside to pee, she’s extremely fond of sniffing. At first I assumed it’s just the scent of other dogs. But… not really. She sniffs anything and everything in sight. Quite handy if you ask me.

3. Ears are essential for expression
Eyes are the windows to the soul, but ears are the thoroughly underrated, as far as being expressive goes. The multitude of expressions that this dainty woman shows with just a little twitch to her ears… I fall in love with her every day. Although, there’s not much humans can do with our ears. Except the ear wiggle. 1000% amusing.

Toffee, you had me at woof

4. Trust your instinct
I don’t know about you, but I trust my dog’s instincts about people. She instantly takes a liking for a few people and for the rest… well, she won’t quit barking. Some doggy-alarm goes off in her head. It IS true, she loved my best friends when they came over. A few other friends (who turned out to be total dirtbags over time), failed the Toffee test when they first met her. This one guy, let’s call him Barnes; Toffee hated the very floor he walked on. He turned out to be the biggest turd I know, so well, I really think there’s a lot more to animals than we give them credit for. I’d get suspicious of people who didn’t like dogs, but I’d never doubt my dog’s dislike for people.

5. All animals are nice
She’s as willing to strike a friendship with a cat as she is with a cow. A little too excited honestly, but she’s a good egg. All animals are.

6. You can have all the balls but still not be happy
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
On a serious note though: balls are her most favorite things on Earth, after food. No matter how many of them she has, she’ll still sit and beg for more. You shouldn’t stop hoping for more in life, even if you already have some of it. Or lots of it. You need to want certain things to have goals in life.

Just two? Aw hooman, you disappoint me

7. Size doesn’t matter
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Again, on a serious note, she might be a tiny sausage, but she’s got the biggest heart. Sometimes, the quietest people have the loudest minds; the tiniest people have the courage of a lion; the most ordinary looking people lead the most extraordinary lives. Be kind enough to accept people for what they are, you don’t know their story.

8. Forgiveness
She has this habit of wanting to be involved in everything that happens, unless it involves water. Quite sadly, her butting in means she gets stepped on sometimes. For us it’s heartbreaking. For her, it’s a yelp of pain and five minutes later, she’s back to being her boisterous self. Forgiveness speaks volumes about the forgiver.

9. BADGERINGWORKS
If you want to get someone to do something for you, you need to keep at it. She is unrelenting. If I’m sitting at my desk and she comes to me with her ball, I ignore her. Then she slides under my chair and peeps at me from between my legs. I ask her to go away.

Then she drops the ball at my feet. Both of us watch it roll away. I give up and get the ball and throw it for her. She runs after it, gets it back to me and the cycle continues.
I go from not playing with her, to throwing the ball for her like a pitching machine. All because she chose to sit at my feet and not budge till she got what she wanted.

*drools excessively* I really want to play with you, but I don’t want to give you the ball

10. Never overstretch yourself to please anyone
This. No matter how cozy the weather is, and how nice smelling your human is, Toffee does not cuddle face-to-face. She cuddles butt-to-face, and that’s how it is. You might find it disgusting, alright, so don’t cuddle her.
So simple.
Such a great lesson, to not lose yourself in the pursuit of chasing things and/or people.